and in memory, to sleep
by asylumsession
Summary: "Sometimes I think I remember what it was like before," she says, staring down at her tea, fingers shaking. "Do you ever feel like you're forgetting something, Todoroki-kun?" "Too often," Todoroki tells her. "Too often." (three parts written in increments of 1500 words each)
1. 1

Todoroki Shouto can't help but feel as though he's forgetting something.

It's a nagging thought at the back of his mind, prodding and murmuring, telling him _something's not right_. He can't, for the life of him, figure out what it is. There's a feeling, like his world is tilted and jarred, something's not _right_ , something's _missing_ , the third seat of the row closest to the window shouldn't be empty-

But it is. It always has been.

(~~)

In his memories, his mother is always crying.

"Your left side is unsightly," she whispers, voice trembling pitifully, and his heart _wrenches_ , but then it's nothing but _pain pain pain._

He keeps catching glimpses of green eyes.

 _They made you into a weapon and told you to find peace._

" _It's your power, isn't it?!"_

Shouto wakes in a cold sweat, chasing after a handful of constellations against tanned skin. There's a name on the tip of his tongue, leaving his mouth raw with pain as he fights to spit it out.

(He flings his blanket away - it's too hot, too stifling, he can't think clearly enough to use his ice - and tries to write down everything he can remember about the- the- the _person_ , but it slips through his fingers like sand.)

Shouto doesn't sleep well at night, constantly plagued by memories of blood and fire and fathomless green eyes. He keeps seeing his father's cruel smile, his mother's soft one, someone's- someone's smile, blinding like the sun, and suddenly he feels _whole_ -

Without fail, he always wakes, blood cold as ice. Something is always missing, fingers stretching to curl for something that he cannot find.

Sometimes he sees the sleepless nights reflected in his classmates' expressions, flickering hollow and lost, laughter dying in the middle of a joke. They fight harder in training, more desperately, expressions twisting with something unreadable.

Shouto usually works alone. There's an odd number of students in Class 1-A.

(~~)

All Might tries not to show it, but Shouto notices the way his gaze strays. In the middle of teaching, he falters, gaze flickering and words stalling. His trademark smile fades, just a bit.

Everybody pretends not to notice when his eyes shift to that empty desk.

They're playing a game lately, where everyone's tongue feels wrong in their mouths, too big and tangled, keeping something from their thoughts that they want to put out in the open but _can't_. Their smiles seem too big, too tight at the edges, voices too loud and cheerful.

Shinsou Hitoshi replaces Mineta Minoru as the nineteenth member of Class 1-A. He frowns at them when he enters, but joins the game all the same. Everyone greets him with a uniform smile. Shouto does not, and he watches the way Bakugou lowers his eyes, expression hooded. He's quieter, lately, but more irritable.

All Might pulls Shouto aside when class ends, spending a long moment frowning at him. Shouto isn't sure how he feels about seeing the number one hero's ever present grin just vanishing like this. It makes his stomach twist and his nerves buzz over the surface of his skin like electricity. He can't tell if his blood turns to ice or if it's just his quirk, frost creeping.

"You've been distracted," All Might tells him, hand coming down over Shouto's shoulder - right - like a weight, "young Todoroki. If you ever need to talk…"

There's static crackling in his ears.

"You're a terrible liar, All Might," Shouto tells him, "don't think we haven't noticed you acting oddly."

All Might laughs that rambunctious laugh of his. "I keep forgetting not to underestimate you!"

Shouto watches the change happen, as though slow motion. He watches All Might's shoulders lower, and his hand moves from Shouto's shoulder and hovers in the air, just a bit lower, as though to rest on someone else's. Just for a moment, he looks infinitely lost again, eyes dark.

"You feel it too," Shouto states more than asks, because it isn't a question.

All Might's hand drops to his side. He seems resigned, somehow smaller. "Yes. I can't help but feel as though something's missing. Everything - _everyone_ \- says that nothing's changed, but…"

"You can't help but think otherwise," Shouto finishes.

He wonders if they're all insane. Shouto turns away, leaves All Might to his somber air and slips away.

(~~)

"You keep staring at your hand," Yaoyorozu tells him, fingers pausing where they're halfway done pulling her hair into a ponytail.

Shouto lifts his gaze slowly. The noise around him comes back - they're in the 1-A common room, he's on the couch with a gap to his right, an unnervingly empty space between him and the corner. The space is just big enough for a body. Shouto looks down again, clenching his fingers closed.

"I just feel like I should be holding onto something."

(~~)

Shouto keeps rummaging around in his memory, pulling out images of the slope of a nose and the soft whisper of an indistinguishable voice. The memories draw forth emotions he's forgotten, unadulterated happiness and warmth.

" _I love you, Shouto_ ," the person is saying.

It isn't his mother. When he tries to remember, a migraine renders him immobile. By the time it goes away, the memories have slipped away again. Shouto does not sleep that night. He slips out of his dorm and wanders the hall, sometimes wondering if Fuyumi is up and then never sending a message to her or anybody else.

He hears Uraraka Ochako before he sees her.

Just inside the kitchens, he hears sniffling, quiet and soft, as though the person is stifling them. Shouto has to pause to question himself, to wonder if he's ready to deal with the emotions of someone else, but then he hears the distraught, choked noise again and pushes the door open without thinking.

Uraraka's head snaps up. Her eyes are red and puffy, cheeks streaked with tears, like she's been here for a while. There's a blanket draped over her shoulders and tea on the table in front of her, but he can't see any steam coming from it - it looks cold. A little more of her is gone; he can see it in her eyes. When he looks at Uraraka, he always sees this light in her eyes, something bright and determined and _strong._ Now, he sees only shadows, suppressed sadness, _agony_.

"Todoroki-kun," she manages, standing hastily, voice cracking pitifully - _and god, it reminds him of his mother -_ and eyes darting to avoid his, "I didn't realize you were up. I'm sorry, I'll, ah, I'll leave-"

"It's okay," he tells her, sitting down across from her and reaching over to curl his fingers over her cup, "stay."

Uraraka watches, eyes a fraction wider, as he warms it. Slowly, she sits back down and takes the cup when he draws his hand back. He watches, wordlessly, as she takes a drink and her shoulders seem to lower.

"Thank you," she murmurs softly, setting it down again.

Shouto merely shakes his head. "I figured you could use some company."

Uraraka smiles softly and- _ah_ , there it is. It's struggling, but Shouto can see that little flick of light in her eyes. She doesn't say anything for a while, seemingly content to sit in the silence. Shouto closes his eyes and eases into the seat. He won't admit it, but he's having a moment of his own. It's one where his hands don't feel like his own and every time he hears someone else take a breath his chest goes tight like he's breathing through them and not through himself. He wonders why this body is his, why it feels so foreign and slow and _wrong_.

"You're a bad liar, Todoroki-kun," Uraraka tells him, only a moment later.

 _Ah._ Shouto almost smiles. He forgets she's more observant than he gives her credit for.

"So I am," he replies, voice feeling too loud for the silence of the room.

"Sometimes I think I remember what it was like before," she says, staring down at her tea, fingers shaking. "Do you ever feel like you're forgetting something, Todoroki-kun?"

"Too often," Todoroki tells her. "Too often."

Uraraka reaches across the table and takes his left hand in hers. They stay like that for a long time, hands clasped and heads lowered.

They don't speak again that night, but they grow closer. If anybody notices, they say nothing. Uraraka lingers nearby occasionally during lunch, smiles at him in class. Sometimes he sees her in the kitchens again at the dead of night and they sit together in silence. Her tea is cold when he arrives, and he warms it. Sometimes he's dissociating again when she shows, and a soft touch to his shoulder helps bring him out of it. It's easier to suffer together than alone, so they do. Shouto isn't sure when he started feeling open to others.

Perhaps it has something to do with his missing memories.

Shouto resigns himself to gazing out the window, watching the world go on around him.


	2. 2

Sometimes Todoroki Shouto visits his mother.

He never makes it through the door, only gazing into the small window, staring at her back. Without fail, she's always turned towards the window, always listless. He glimpses her eyes sometimes, dull and despondent. She looks lost.

He keeps thinking he's seen her smile, sometime recently. But he knows better. He's never made it past this door. He merely watches, wishes, and thinks.

(~~)

Lately, Shouto only ever feels hollow. He sees it reflected in Aizawa's exhausted eyes, in the way his gaze shifts between each person, blinking rarely, as though trying to erase a quirk but not quite sure who to look at to cancel it. The teacher was always quiet before, but he's more somber now, somehow, as though he's never quite _there_ with them.

Class goes on, but there's something missing.

He passes by Shinsou at the end of the period. He's murmuring to Ojiro, lips pinched in a frown. "Didn't this class… have twenty students?"

Shouto's fingertips leave frost on the edge of the desk. "No," he interrupts, fixing Shinsou with a steady stare, "it's always been nineteen."

He won't admit he's not sure if that's the truth or not.

Shinsou stares back at him for a long time, and Shouto looks away first, leaving the room with cold air in his wake.

(~~)

"Iida-san, is something the matter?"

Shouto hears Yaoyorozu's voice before he sees her. He halts, just around the corner, peering out to where the class president and vice president are speaking. Iida looks lost in thought, eyebrows furrowed and a conflicted expression on his features.

"Yaoyorozu-san," he starts, formal as always, "you were always the vice president, were you not?"

"I was," says Yaoyorozu, folding her arms over her chest and frowning, "but where are you going with this?"

"Somehow," Iida tells her, "I feel as though I wasn't always the president, though. I keep thinking someone had it before me - I wasn't the one people voted on as president originally."

"That's absurd," Yaoyorozu starts, but when she shifts enough for Shouto to see her face, she looks like she's doubting her words, "I would remember that."

"I suppose," Iida murmurs, clenching his left hand into a fist.

Shouto has memories of ice and fire and _green_. He has memories of a back alley fight, a blade cutting through skin and the betrayal of his own blood. Shouto remembers telling someone, " _We'll protect them together,_ " but try as he may, he can't remember _who_.

 _My friend might be in trouble_ , he'd told his father that night. It had been Iida in trouble, hadn't it? Iida had been the one-

Shouto turns and leaves the two to their conversation.

(~~)

He wakes again in a cold sweat, blanket half singed, feeling as though he's simultaneously overheating and freezing at the same time. It's those _eyes_ again, staring into him, saying something- _something._

The name is always at the tip of Shouto's tongue, but he can't force it out.

His bed suddenly feels empty and unappealing, so he staggers out and down the stairs.

Uraraka isn't in the dorm kitchens when Shouto arrives, but Tokoyami is. He's perched on the counter, just under the only light that's on, undoubtedly to keep Dark Shadow under control. He looks as weary as Shouto feels, head lowered and eyes only lifting to follow Shouto as he enters.

Shouto doesn't talk to Tokoyami much. They've only interacted a few times, but he has a nagging memory of seeing Tokoyami in- a cavalry battle? Shouto isn't sure what's real anymore. Tokoyami doesn't say anything, but his eyes follow Shouto around as he makes tea.

"...Couldn't sleep?" Shouto finally breaks the silence, his back to Tokoyami.

"No," his classmate replies, after a moment, "nightmares. And you?"

"Dreams, I think," Shouto murmurs, unsure.

He takes his usual seat at the table. They're both silent, for a while, but it isn't a particularly awkward thing. They're just two restless souls in a pocket of reality where time doesn't seem to exist. A part of Shouto thinks they could be decent friends - really, when did he start thinking about friends? - since they're similar enough in their own respects. Perhaps he's just too exhausted to think properly about opening his mouth, because he lowers his gaze to stare at his reflection in his drink and breaks the silence.

"Tokoyami-san," he begins, "do you… ever think your dreams could be real?"

"I prefer not to," Tokoyami tells him, after a pause, "why? Do you?"

Shouto frowns down at his cup, watching as his breath disturbs the reflection. "No. Just wondering."

He shares a solitary, mutual respect with Tokoyami after that. They still don't talk that often, but sometimes Tokoyami joins him and Uraraka in the dead of the night, when the rest of the world almost doesn't exist.

(~~)

"Just do your work," Aizawa tells them, the next day.

He doesn't crawl out of that gaudy yellow sleeping bag and everyone just lowers their heads to comply.

(~~)

"Todoroki-kun, have you been getting proper sleep?"

Shouto stops at the sound of Yaoyorozu's voice. He turns to face her and is met with the sight of a deep frown and searching eyes. He doesn't get the opportunity to speak up; she pushes on once she knows she has his attention.

"The bags under your eyes are worse than usual, and I know you haven't been paying attention lately. As the class vice president - _no_ , as your friend, I wanted to make sure you were taking care of yourself." She hesitates a moment. "I know you don't like people intruding on your business… But lately everyone seems out of it."

He thinks of Uraraka, crying alone in the kitchens at night and of Iida, doubting he'd always been the class president. He thinks of Tokoyami, plagued by nightmares, shadows beneath his eyes illuminated by the lone light. He thinks of All Might, smile forced at the edges and of Aizawa, with Shouto's own exhaustion reflected in his eyes. He thinks of himself, taunted by memories of green eyes and constellations of freckles and _I love you_ s.

Shouto is grateful for her friendship, but he hardly knows what _taking care of yourself_ means lately. "I'm fine," he tells her anyways, picks up his bag, and leaves the classroom.

(~~)

Shouto keeps wondering when he started being _okay_ with using his fire. Up to a point, even here at UA, he remembers only using his ice. He remembers stubbornly rebelling against his father - _for his mother_ \- for years and years, training and honing his ice. He remembers the cold frost creeping over his skin and the unsteady thrum of heat, fighting to be unleashed but always remaining suppressed.

And then suddenly it's _free_ and something in his chest doesn't feel so tight anymore.

Shouto can't remember where the change occurred. He keeps thinking about the words in his dreams, the _it's your power, isn't it?_ and the _I love you, Shouto,_ in a voice that isn't his mother's or his sister's. Shouto keeps staring at his left hand, watching flames dart over it with no backlash of sour emotions and remorse.

Whatever he's missing, whatever he's _forgetting_ , Shouto knows it must have been important.

(~~)

He finds the journal on the train.

It's a half hidden, nondescript thing, and everyone else's eyes just sort of glaze over it. Shouto's would have too, but somehow it _screams_ to him, and he looks around to see who's watching, before just reaching over and snagging it by the corner. It reads _Hero Analysis For The Future_ on the front, marked with a large _Volume 14_ up in the corner. Shouto almost recognizes it, somehow - it's a nagging tug in his memories.

He spends the train ride flipping slowly through the pages, entries upon entries and drawings of multiple heroes and villains and a thorough analysis of battles, strengths, weaknesses, and what could be done to improve. It's impressive, to say the least.

So Shouto, of course, is surprised when he finds an entry about _himself_.

He stops entirely, having been preparing to turn the page, but seeing _TODOROKI SHOUTO_ is shocking. It's a complete analysis of his quirk - both sides - and even a drawing, not to mention the rest. Shouto knows this should strike him as creepy; someone knows enough about him to have written this. Inexplicably, instead, it gives him a warm feeling.

Shouto tucks the notebook into his bag on the way off the train. It gives him a little bit of boldness as he walks towards the Todoroki home for the first time in a while.

(~~)

Shouto isn't scared of his father anymore. Hatred, yes, but that's a given. But he doesn't fear him anymore. When he looks at Enji, he sees the face of a man foreign to him, fueled by anger and spite.

In the back of his mind, someone tells Shouto that he is not his father.

So, _no_ , Shouto isn't scared of his father anymore.


	3. 3

Todoroki Shouto spends a lot of time just… walking.

He keeps seeing a woman with green hair on the sidewalk. She looks lost, standing by the train stops for hours and never boarding. Sometimes he sees her wandering, eyebrows pinched, hands wringing. Sometimes they speak.

"I'm looking for something," she tells him, softly, "Something… Something I've lost. But I don't know _what_."

He offers to help.

They wander together. It's quiet.

(~~)

" _Shouto?_ " Fuyumi's voice comes out, crackling, through the phone speaker. " _Shouto, I can hear you breathing."_

"Sorry," Shouto murmurs, "I'm… out of it."

" _How have you been? You sound tired. You're taking care of yourself, aren't you?"_

He's silent again. Shouto hears her call his name again, but he doesn't speak up.

(~~)

There's a room on the second floor of the boy's dorm that nobody ever goes into. Sometimes Shouto stops in front of the door, a falter to his step, as though he's meant to be here - _this_ is his destination. Sometimes he reaches for the knob and- he never opens it.

Sometimes he sees other people, Bakugou and Kirishima and Tokoyami and Iida, go by and look at it with a furrow between their brows, or a frustrated expression. But nobody goes in. Nobody truly thinks about what's past those doors.

(~~)

Occasionally, when he sees the woman, he sees her walking with a tall, gaunt looking man with blond hair. They seem to be familiar with each other, though unsure as to _why_. They walk shoulder to shoulder, heads lowered and shoulders slouched, as though they're sharing the weight of the entire universe between the two of them.

Shouto almost wishes he didn't understand that feeling. It's days like these that he avoids the woman, turns and heads the other way, goes to run off his frustration and spiraling thoughts and the nagging _who who who._

It's odd, Shouto thinks; he doesn't remember this stretch of the beach being clean.

(~~)

Bakugou is more volatile lately. He snaps at anyone who gets within two feet of him; even Kirishima, who is usually the balance to Bakugou's unrelenting rage, is sent skittering away with a startled expression. The explosive blond is seething and it shows in everything, as though he's more frustrated than usual. He keeps turning around to the desk behind him, as though to shout at someone, but the only one close enough is Shinsou, who sits another seat back.

Bakugou snarls and resigns himself to simmering in his own rage. Shouto, for once, understands him. It's not that Bakugou is angry, per se, it's more of that frustration that something's off and _nobody knows what it is._

He's more vicious during training. Kirishima is the only one who dares to spar with him anymore. All Might doesn't try to stop him. His blue eyes are always distant.

(~~)

When Shouto dissociates, he feels it coming. It comes like a ripple in perfectly still water, stealing his breath first, and then the sensation from his fingertips. He feels the way his soul almost seems to detach from his skin and draw away and suddenly these hands are not his and this is not his body. He feels like he's looking through someone else's eyes, at unfamiliar surroundings and with unfamiliar memories.

He stares at his hands for a long time, only distantly hearing his music in his ears, but the words don't process. He hears the rasp of his breath and the steady thrum of his heart, but every time he takes a breath, his chest feels like it's on fire.

With nothing to stop them, his thoughts spiral.

Shouto doesn't sleep that night. He walks on unsteady feet to the kitchen, where he meets Uraraka and Tokoyami, beneath that lone light as usual. As though expecting him, there's already a second cup of tea in his usual seat. Tokoyami nods a greeting and Uraraka offers a half smile, but none of them speak.

They don't return to their rooms until the sun peeks over the horizon.

(~~)

" _Tell me not to do it,_ " he keeps telling someone in his dream, someone with artwork of freckles and a smile that melts Shouto's heart.

" _Do you want to?"_ The voice asks, and Shouto _recognizes_ it and his heart _wrenches_ -

He tells them, " _I want to do anything that seems like it might destroy me._ "

The person reaches out, and Shouto wakes up. He hunches over, jaw clenching, and feels himself on the brink of crying for the first time in a long, long time. He can't remember the last time he cried, but he feels the tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. His chest aches, and he can't figure out why. All he can think about is the person in his dreams, soft voice, gentle smile, the touch of lips on lips, and green green green eyes.

" _I think about my past a lot,_ " he'd told someone, " _all I ever wanted was to be someone who made him furious._ "

Shouto is sick and tired of dreaming.

(~~)

"Todoroki-kun," Tsuyu croaks, tipping her head at him, "you look more tired than Shinsou-kun."

"I would take offense to that if it weren't true," Shinsou informs her, attention caught by the mention of his name.

"Don't you have anything better to do than ask me about my sleeping habits?" Shouto half snaps.

He doesn't mean for it to come out so mean, but he _is_ exhausted and his mind isn't processing well. At this point, he's running on black coffee and frustration. Tsuyu blinks twice, seems to realize that interacting with Shouto at the moment isn't the best idea, and then lopes back to her seat.

"Oh, boo-hoo, half-and-half is in a _bad mood_ ," Bakugou snarls as he stalks between the rows towards his own seat, shoulders curled forward and eyes narrowed.

Shouto's gaze zeroes in on him and he is suddenly, inexplicably, _enraged._

"Oh yeah?" He says, voice calm, cold as ice. "Well _that's_ certainly funny, coming from all the sunshine and rainbows _you're_ spitting out."

It all happens in slow motion. The class goes dead silent, gazes focused on the two as the tension between them slices through the air like a blade. Bakugou halts mid-step and slowly, _slowly_ turns to face Shouto, whose gaze doesn't waver, pointed like daggers.

"What the _fuck_ did you just say?"

"You heard me."

Shouto doesn't feel it when Bakugou punches him. All he knows is he's standing and then he's on the ground, ears ringing, a weight on him. All he knows is Bakugou is across the room and then suddenly he's vaulted over the desks and he's _here_ , straddling Shouto and just _swinging._ The black splotches clear and fill his vision sporadically, and all he can see is Bakugou's twisted face between swings. Briefly, he catches a glimpse of Aizawa's bands shooting out when the teacher rushes into the room, blurred white streaks wrapping around Bakugou.

 _Ah_ , Shouto thinks, as Bakugou gets one last hit in and his world goes black.

(~~)

He wakes with a start in Recovery Girl's clinic.

"Izuku," he breathes.

Shouto's head is pounding and his face hurts like _hell_ , but suddenly he _knows_ and he _remembers, and oh god, Midoriya Izuku._ Shouto half flings himself out of the bed and ignores Recovery Girl's briefly baffled look, sprinting out of the room.

It's All Might he runs into first.

"Izuku!" He breathes, eyes wide, heart racing. " _Midoriya Izuku_."

It's like a trigger. All Might falters, and the pieces fall into place. He lifts his gaze, hard and determined. "I'll tell your classmates and the other teachers. You go look for him, young Todoroki."

Shouto doesn't hesitate.

(~~)

It's a quirk.

Shouto knows it's a quirk, because it was the fact that Bakugou had _knocked him unconscious_ that had freed him from it. He hates himself for ever forgetting, quirk or not. The first place Shouto goes is his dorm. He flings open the door, struck with the pure nostalgia of the place.

He doesn't find Izuku there.

His phone rings.

" _Todoroki-kun_ ," the voice is Midoriya Inko's and he _remembers_ , and somehow he knows she does too.

It's a chain reaction, he realizes. Once one knows, the others begin to remember. She doesn't sound so lost anymore.

" _The hospital. They have him in the hospital. He appeared there this morning._ "

(~~)

The hospital is not Todoroki Shouto's favorite place. It reeks of chemicals that make him think of death and injury. But he bypasses it, mind focused only on one thing. _Izuku, Izuku_ , he repeats, like a mantra. Once he has the room number, he's walking, walking, jogging, sprinting, _flying_ across the ground, up the stairs, through the door-

There.

Izuku opens his eyes slowly as Shouto approaches, sitting up carefully. He looks _okay_ , and relief sweeps over Shouto.

"Shouto?" He whispers, voice hoarse. "Your face… What happ-"

Shouto moves across the room with purpose, takes Izuku's face in his hands, and kisses him hard.

"I never told you I love you."


End file.
